Tuesday, December 31, 2019

20191231.0430

All too often
A discordant note sounded
When I thought I would be the one with baton in hand
Leading from the front
And I would cringe
And my body still tenses at the thought
Of hearing the sound again
An ill-pitched interval ringing out
Played to another purpose
Perhaps
But sounding no better for any reason
And the excuse making more of a muddle
Of a chord that should sound strong and true
But I have laid the baton aside
Stepped down from the low podium I once ascended
In the hope of holding a higher one
Let others deal with the noise now

Monday, December 30, 2019

20191230.0430

High in the back of a cave
Above the churning action that
Pushes air and moves water
There is a rumbling and a rustling
And the way for it to surge forward
Out of the mouth of the cave
Is all too narrow

Sunday, December 29, 2019

20191229.0430

Sunset and sunrise
Moonlight on the covered fields
Fire under them
Starshine lingers in each glance
High noon under a fair sky

Saturday, December 28, 2019

20191228.0430

I perhaps grow soft
In my old age
As my eyebrows begin to bush and
Grow pale above my face as it falls
Into wrinkles
Rising from a snow-stained beard
But if I do
I find I am happier for the cushion
The padding easing the shocks of life
That rattled me when I thought myself
A harder man

What I have not yet broken inside
Might still survive

Friday, December 27, 2019

20191227.0430

I am a grain of sand
Ground away from the small stone that
Ice's swellings have broken away from
The larger rock of which it was part
And which itself was rolled or carted thence
Whence it was quarried
Part of no continent
Save that the actions of wind and wave might cast me upon one
But they can take me away as easily
Even if I seem to have lodged again
In the crotches of oak or cedar or mesquite
Rising from the rolling limestone hills

Thursday, December 26, 2019

20191226.0430

There is always danger in returning again to the work
That I should have long since left behind as done
With me. Every time I find my way back to it once again
Try to sneak in through some gutter or postern
I find myself subsumed in some small task the work demands
But that is not the total of the work. Perhaps that's why
I never did succeed in it, that the one small part
Of what ought to be a much greater whole
Swallows me up until I find myself shat out again
And flushed somewhere far away

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

20191225.0430

Consider this the usual holiday message. For those of you who celebrate such traditions, may you have joy of it! For those who do not, may you be well and happy!
Regular ravings resume tomorrow...

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

20191224.0430

Too long I listened to the changing choir
That waxed and waned as plaintive pitch grew higher
Because I to a tower’s spot aspired
And let that hope persist for far too long.
Now my ears are ringing with the song
That comes discordant, driven by the throng
Of those who claimed, and falsely, that they yearn
To gather up new knowledge, and to learn
How they might from the Stupid God return.
All that they sought was how to make a buck;
For what I had to offer, not a fuck
Gave they, save rarely. I had little luck
In seeking a profession based on chance.
My card is empty; no more thus I dance.

Monday, December 23, 2019

20191223.0430

Butter may do badly to be scraped over too much bread
And there is no way to gather it up again
Not without dragging crumbs along
Unless maybe a gentle heat applied for long
But even that will lose some of the spread
Better simply to eat the slice

Sunday, December 22, 2019

20191222.0430

The flame returns
Sweeping across the charcoal field
Subsuming the still-glinting embers
In its own burgeoning light
And warming all around

Saturday, December 21, 2019

20191221.0430

The sky is burning from below
And char spreads above in the fire's path
Marking where the day has been expended
And turning eyes to where hope still lingers
Even as faint embers begin to show against the deepening black

Friday, December 20, 2019

20191220.0430

Straining to spill ink on the subject
The amanuensis assisting
Work of the word-path winding to that end
The inspiration falters; the ink will not flow
The pen put aside
Sheets shuffled back
Another attempt at another time
Maybe it will do more

Thursday, December 19, 2019

20191219.0430

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, indeed, but they are fakes
Who think not that the Stupid God forsakes
Ere noon who bow to it with coming dawn.
It uses them, discards them, and moves on
To other victims, willing, yes, and non.
It feasts upon them, takes them for its own,
May lift them up a moment ere they're thrown
Aside--the meat stripped, naked bone
Already cracked and marrow long scraped out.
It is the work of Stupid God that doubt
Of its intentions still persists despite
Repeated actions in plain, open sight.

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

20191218.0430

Recovery is a curious thing
Not so much a covering again
As a baring to sight and light
And the resulting disinfection that strong sunshine offers
The airing out that opening to the wind and sky permits
Blowing away long-collected stinks that gather
Where things have been allowed to fester and turn putrid
It is not a fogging over again
Or the laying on of another shroud
But a removal of them
That a person no longer stumble about
Seeing danger late if at all
Not knowing whither it is they are bound

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

20191217.0430

How often do we hear them sing
Who claim to be Sophia’s devotees or Minerva’s
Or
Because they often think with smaller heads
And think that smaller heads make more wisdom
And that one eye sees better ways to thrust deep in
Of Wednesday’s eponym
That they are engaged in such devotions
And mighty in them
Mastering minutiae of little moment
And making it large in circumscribed lives
Their chorus stacking augmented fourths and minor seconds
Stumbling in half-steps taken all together
Pleasant to the Stupid God’s ears more than to any other
While they hear only themselves and seek to drown by volume
Other voices that might offer resolution

Monday, December 16, 2019

20191216.0430

Encased in ivory walls that stretch up high,
That hide most sight of land, and much of sky,
They think them safe from those who would decry
The efforts of the mind--but they are fools
Who reck not that they make the very tools
That turn against them often, or the fuels
That feed the flames of hate they won’t oppose
For fear of being seen as trampling toes
Or worse--as seems the Stupid God well knows.
Many linger long to enter there;
They know not the danger or don’t care,
Thinking each it will be they the system spares,
When they see hundreds of their fellows fail,
Their papers paving a winding, fading trail.

Sunday, December 15, 2019

20191215.0430

He'll not be apt to see it for a while yet
My brother keeps strange hours
Yet even with that in mind kept
I marshal up my powers
To send a simple message
That I've often sent before:
Have a happy birthday, brother,
And here's to many more!

Saturday, December 14, 2019

20191214.0430

A shadow of the self I sought to be,
I lingered just outside the lambent halls and lounges
Walled in warm ivory. The world seemed distant;
I perceived myself privileged to participate,
A minor mind-worker, in making new knowing.
Bound to the basement of that aging bastion
That falters and fails now, falls into ruin,
Artillery's aiming point, altar-bound offering
To be sent as sacrifice to seekers of gold,
I held on and hoped on that the halls would open,
Free me to fellowship I fervently sought.
I deeded a decade and more to that doing,
Unseen and unheard more often than not
Unless opprobrium found me; not honored, my name,
But regarded badly, a bane and a curse.
My business is ended. The books may still beckon,
And I, happy, heed them, but no longer here
In uprighted ivory that age makes more brittle;
No ghost now, I go off to other glory.

Friday, December 13, 2019

20191213.0430

Gentle swellings new to their fruition
Bending and bowing and baring to a stolen glance
Pristine paleness surrounding a shallow valley
Perhaps a bit more
A sterner swelling stands in rapt attention
Awaiting entry at a gate it hopes is waiting
Never to be admitted
Never even to knock

Thursday, December 12, 2019

20191212.0430

A line of fire tracing down
Marking a path from purification down
Where shanks' mare rides and further on
Punishing too much idleness
No less than too much action
And nothing can smother the flame
Burning though it consumes no fuel
And no air feeds it

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

20191211.0430

Peeling back the layers that surround the curves
Bowing themselves in fitting tightly to them
I weep at what I find there, though I press on,
Longing to put my mouth to what my hands uncover

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

20191210.0430

It is a hydra
Growing heads to replace and succeed
Every one I lop off
And the marrow rises to meet the new need
And though I stroke mightily again and again
The task is never done
And I cannot take the time away to light a fire
To find a brand to sear the stalks
Lest the many mouths and teeth take me
Rip me apart into the bloody chunks
They seek to have consumed
It is all I can do to keep in stasis
But more heads press upon me
More eyes stare at me to find a weakness in my defense
And they will soon uncover such a thing
Unless another
Mightier than I
Can defeat their own foe
And come to my aid
But I know not whom I would call
That could hear me over the din

Monday, December 9, 2019

20191209.0430

Ranting, he claimed
Some other was playing us all
Like a fucking flute
And I have to wonder
Why a flute is seen as easy
Is it because it is so often in the hands of women
And women
Of course
Cannot do the difficult things
Because putting up with men is so easy
Of course
But while it may be the case that
To make a certain shaft sing when blown
Is no hard thing
Or not hard long
It is not an easy thing to wind a flute
To carry it as it must be borne to be played well
With arm upraised and flute held straight
For the hours
And hours
And hours
That even the barest beginning of playing well demands
Note that the instrumentalists
Though they complain of flutists far from seldom
Never tell the jokes of them they do of drummers
And the drum is a better thing we're played like
Being beaten about the head
Or banged, often and loudly

Sunday, December 8, 2019

20191208.0430

Strange tears of joy fall from a single eye
Where one stands alone and looks out from the thatch
Wherein the pouch emerges, as well
Strands clinging to it but not hiding it from view
Any more than the single sentinel who sometimes bows
And sometimes stands to stiff attention
Bidden or otherwise
What lips will kiss such a standing one
Lead it away from sorrow to a happiness that gushes forth
A drilling well
Take those tears away when they come again?

Saturday, December 7, 2019

20191207.0430

Boreas may be ever ready to blow
And you may be desperate indeed to be blown
But you should still be wary:
The North Wind bites.

Friday, December 6, 2019

20191206.0430

Let me be your Notus
Coming up from below
To bring you warmth and moisture
Through what my mouth does
No cold Boreas or callow Zephyr
Nor yet dull Eurus of whom few songs are sung
For though I gladly greet you at the dawn
It is after the sun has set that I would see you gladdest
Caress every bit of you bared to me
Or press against you strongly

Thursday, December 5, 2019

20191205.0430

The door will not open for me
Not more than a crack through which I can
See and
Hear and
Smell enough to intrigue
But I cannot fill my belly from it
Or my heart with aught but sorrow
My knuckles bleed still from
Knocking so long at it;
I will leave off to let them heal while
I go where I am welcomed.

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

20191204.0430 "Putting Out"

Pumping away with one shaft or another gripped firmly in a strong right hand
That has known many such in its time
Spraying traceries that others might take in
And maybe bringing in a bit of cash for it
Or opening wide and taking in what is on offer
Letting it get deep inside before it empties
And slips away, much diminished, from its former stature
Leaking out before it can find its intended use
Leaving panting and sweating and many crumpled sheets behind

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

20191203.0430 "Le Petit Morte d'Arthur"

A boy was bidden, before those gathered 'round,
To pull on the pommel and push it in again,
Slide into the sheath what had stood within it,
Take in teenaged hands a typical thing
A Viminal vagina might find valorous.

Monday, December 2, 2019

20191202.0430

The weather outside is cool
But my eyes stare into the desert winds
And I feel their febrile heat within me
It is usually dry here
But not to the point of being a desert
Yet
And I would be no nomad could I avoid it

Sunday, December 1, 2019

20191201.0430

Come and melt with me
Ice flowing into water
Let me bathe within
Washing my face in the stream
Rising from deep-rooted spring

Saturday, November 30, 2019

20191130.0430

There are times I would do as the ostrich is famed to do
Unjustly and inaccurately
But burying my head in the sand only leaves my ass up in the air
And flabby and pale though it is
With pimples upon it where the hair is worn away
From too mush sitting
Something is sure to come on by
And bite it

Friday, November 29, 2019

20191129.0430

The name of the day is darkened
And with good reason
Insofar as any reason can be good
(I have been told that thinking through things
Only leads to sadness
While trust brings joy
Though I have found often
That trust leads to loss
And thinking through expends nothing but time
That ever flies away
Whatever is done)
For on this day more than most
A base urge shows
And grows
And in its throes
Many people go out and reveal how shallow the veneer is
Under which they often hide
And demand that others do the same

Thursday, November 28, 2019

20191128.0430

They sing
The horn of plenty
Is bursting at the seams
But no true horn is seamed
Made of pieces joined together by glue
Or stitched together from cloth no longer whole
And if it is full on such days as this
The cornucopia
It is only so because of hands that labor
But cannot carry to the mouths that feed them
The fruits their labor yields
And that ram's crown or bull's
Bethought stuffed with all goodness
Is a strange centerpiece for those who know whence it came

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

20191127.0430

Sometimes I've lingered long in places I have loved
Expending effort to remain there in earnest
Paying a price for my presence therein
Pearlescent pieces from the purse kept by my thigh
Not gold but given gladly to whomever would receive them

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

20191126.0430

Who can be blamed for looking upon the hills
And the bushes that grow in valleys
And wanting to be lost among them?

Monday, November 25, 2019

20191125.0430

It's not her heart alone I'd clasp
But also where the storied asp
Made Cleopatra her own past

Sunday, November 24, 2019

20191124.0430

The bag is packed in dim light
One lamp lit against the morning not yet come
And it is sent out into the naked day
Where it travels longer than was spent filling it
Why do we marvel that one who opens it and looks
Finds within it things the packer did not realize
Or might object to having shown?

Saturday, November 23, 2019

2019123.0430

The golden rule calls for each
To act toward others as they'd have done
And the way people act reveals
There are many masochists

Friday, November 22, 2019

20191122.0430

The smaller brazen sentinel stands, too,
And when I look on it, I perforce rue
That I lack skill that will cause it to do
That task for which it long ago was cast.
Better hands than mine worked in its past,
Conducing to a glory now long passed.
For blunter tasks my hands are clearly made,
And blunter than those in my chosen trade,
Which I leave off, since it me has betrayed
If there is loyalty when none is sworn.
The smaller sentinel looks on, forlorn,
And waits for one who has perhaps been born
Who it might take up and tend as befits--
For now, however, it often merely sits.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

20191121.0430

The bigger brazen sentinel still stands
And stares at me and silently demands
I take it in my mouth and in my hands
To tongue it and to blow until it sounds
A deep-voiced call that oftentimes resounds
Until the echo me entire surrounds
And takes me back into my younger days
When I still thought I might earn myself praise
For acting so upon a public dais.
It was the father of my father it once knew,
And he, so far as I know, first it blew,
Though putting lips upon it, I must do
Now that he long since gave up drawing breath.
My work of hand and mouth belies his death.

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

20191120.0430

I remain a man of no faith
Not one who cannot be trusted to do what he says he will do
For which reason I do not say often that I will do a thing
Or not as often as might be hoped
But one irreligious or areligous
And wondering wherein the difference lies between the two
Or atheist
A word many find hateful
And a label applied to many who are less than pleasant
Though the same is true for
"Professing devout belief"
As many know who have been where I have been
And am

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

20191119.0430

There is a coat that I have had since I was very young
I have grown
It has not grown with me
And it was comfortable for a long time
But now
It binds across the shoulders and my belly
And while I might well try to lose some weight
The coat will never fit again
I might pass it along to another
But nobody should wear such a thing
The cut is bad
The material worse
And it stinks with years of use
For I am not the first to wear it
Or, now, to cast it aside

Monday, November 18, 2019

20191118.0430

It has been written that
We tell the tales of heroes
To remind ourselves that
We, too, can be great
But we tell tales of villains, too
And the world shows us well enough
That we can be so depraved
That we cannot need the reminder

Sunday, November 17, 2019

20191117.0430

It not only in the graves of the offended
That bones turn over
But also in merrier places
Where friends have gathered to tell stories together
The bones rolled giving life

Saturday, November 16, 2019

20191116.0430

There are no few who sing hymns to the Stupid God
Not in unison, but not at all in harmony
And not so much sung as shouted with all force
Hoping to by a gale extinguish the flickering flame of lamplight
But it does not seldom happen that even a small fire is fanned to inferno
By the passing of so much hot air
Or winds that break from canyons between hills
And the deep pits within them
That might as well be taking in as putting out
For there is no distinction in the sound
And little in the smell
That either way provides

Friday, November 15, 2019

20191115.0430

Held as exemplars of manliness
Muscles bulging under sweaty skin
Straining fabric gathered tightly
As they squat in their lines
Legs spread wide
While one reaches between another's legs
And others make ready to receive
That oblong thing hands will guide to them
While others still seek to pile on
Until a cloth will wipe the mess away

Thursday, November 14, 2019

20191114.0430

They weep and wail that some will seek to scrub the orange stain away
The putrid citrus leavings of Stupid God working in the world
Raising cries of costs incurred and distraction from and disruption of
Good things being done in their names
Yet for all the time they spend bewailing the cleaning efforts
Their own work to flush away one in white water
And many things after for a generation and more
And which still prompts a common refrain these years later
Cost more and may well do less
For some stains persist despite all the scrubbing
And there is little sense in washing walls that are about to be knocked down

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

20191113.0430

Again the discordant strains have sounded
That a composer "borrows" furtively
Makes a few swift changes
Thinking that one member of a chord can be changed and still be harmonious
And perhaps it can in simpler works
But when there are so many parts
A half-step change in the alto clarinet
Will stick out and irritate
And no audience can be blamed for being angry at such a performance

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

20191112.0430

My hands position the shaft against the string
The tight-stretched thong that strains under such tension
Hindering the further spread
I bring it up beside my mouth
Holding it firm before it slides away
The shaft will soon speed towards the waiting butt
Set up with its central target clearly marked
It will sink in deeply such that only the fletching shows outside
Feathers from the shaft's back end
And I will gladly find the bullseye again and again

Monday, November 11, 2019

20191111.0430

More than a hundred years have gone away
And none now live who fought then and there
Though a few still linger who fought there later
Their own struggles remembered but not honored
As their grandchildren's children wave the flags of their foes
If there is a place from which they look on
Moldering in the grave as the high hopes they voiced
An end to all war because they saw the end of war
Rot alongside them but leave not even bones
It cannot be a place of joy or peace
Would that they had been right

Sunday, November 10, 2019

20191110.0430

February would seem to have been the lovingest month of the year for my family, as for many others, because we run long on November birthdays. My own was not long ago, and my father's is today. He is sixty.
Being so old, having done this as many times as he has, whether there is anything left to say about him or to him is an open question. So I'll confine myself here to the obvious and appropriate
Happy birthday, Pop!
and leave it at that.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

20191109.0430

I flatter myself that my fingers fly
Pressing on points that perk up when I do so
Running on ridges and ribs to bring release
A peculiar pleasure from pounding away
But the traces that trickle out as I follow that tack
Speak less sensuality than solace in form
And intimacy inheres in other things
Than following a function a form might suggest

Friday, November 8, 2019

20191108.0430

There are some days
The well seems to run dry
The hose fed from it dangling
Flaccid and empty
But there are others
That see it turgid and full
Pumping out blast after blast
As hands struggle to hold it
Guide it to the place that needs spraying
Make it to enter through an opening door
And make steam where it finds heat

Thursday, November 7, 2019

20191107.0430

Having the higher title
I find that my favorite part is giving
Returning in some small part to those
I am said to lead
What they give to me
And those who seek us
Is it a strange thing that I value it so?

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

20191106.0430

Shall I open the pages
Look closely at what appears between
Smell the smell of ink not quite dry upon them
Linger over the texture under my fingers
That is so smooth against them
Thrust my bookmark deep within
Lodging it where the pages part
Only to pull it out again
And put it in once more?

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

20191105.0430

I do not remember the fifth of November
I first had occasion to see;
I had just been born on the fourth of November
And it made no difference to me.
But now that I know the fifth of November
For gunpowder, treason, and plot,
I look all around on this fifth of November
And see many others forgot.
When I go to vote on this fifth of November
And in the election partake,
I hope those on the ballot will ever remember
They lie in the bed that they make.

Monday, November 4, 2019

20191104.0430

Today's my birthday, and I probably ought to take some time to reflect on growing older again. I've done it before, and more than once, as this webspace will attest. It's not inappropriate, as many might argue my poetry is (and the poems I've written recently have been fun to write for what many would call the wrong reasons). But it's also not to my taste at the moment as I sit in front of my computer right now and write. Instead, rather than looking back, I think I'll look forward for once--which is not something I often do, but something I probably ought to do more often.
I have things to which to look forward, certainly. I am in a pretty good job, and I have side-line income that is markedly helpful outside of that job. I get to do a fair bit of what I want to do for no more reason than that I want to do it (though some of it does help others in one way or another, which is good). I am in pretty consistent contact with a good bunch of people who support me, even if they've seen me only rarely in "real life," if they have seen me at all. (I still marvel that friendships that develop through physical correspondence are regarded as "real," while there is still disdain for those that develop through online correspondence. Is it a question of effort expended or material costs incurred? I still do not know--but I am happy to exchange letters, and I am generally quick about returning replies.) My family loves me--my wife and daughter, especially so.
That I recognize what I do have that is good does not mean I do not believe things can be better. I do, and they can. And I am in a position to be able to help make them so, if only in small, local ways. My job, of course, is one such thing; I work to help people with their substance use problems--and they are problems even when they involve substances that are legal or should be legal. And I've been working with students and with alumni to foster more of a sense of community than would otherwise have been the case. Too, I'm involved in school-support organizations that make things better for (other) students and teachers. And, when I can, I lift my voice in support of equity and right and against fascism and racism that still permeate too many places (I'm looking at you, medieval studies, that part of the country of academe where I had thought to settle and to which I still in some ways belong; get your shit together, tenured folks, and at least repudiate Nazis and Nazi-wannabes from your positions of protection--or get out and let those willing to do so succeed you). So I am doing what I can to improve things.
As I said, I ought to look forward more often.

Sunday, November 3, 2019

20191103.0430

I died a little
Oysters' children garlanded
Price I gladly pay

Saturday, November 2, 2019

20191102.0430

Spring flowers open
Spreading their pure pink petals
O, to be the bee!

Friday, November 1, 2019

20191101.0430

She clamors to go home
To wait for what she believes will come
And which I expect, as well
But I know that the call is but the first step
And that the road leads to echoing loneliness
I am familiar with it
Too much so
Summoned by it myself and made to do its bidding
I would have her spirit ring
With peals of laughter and joy
Not the fading retort of cracking solitude
It is a far finer melody
All told

Thursday, October 31, 2019

20191031.0430

It is not today that I play dress-up
Not today that I put on a costume and act strangely
That will be tomorrow
When what was will be again
If only in a shadow of what was before
Seated among successors still clad in blue and gold
The offered presence itself an offering
Opened to any if taken by few
Too few
Yet more than might have otherwise been thought
And perhaps happier

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

20191030.0430

An oft-cited adage
It's not the size of the boat
But the motion of the ocean
Does it forget or acknowledge
That the sea will take a ship of any size
And sink it?

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

20191029.0430

They say to get some skin into the game
To get out from behind protective screens
And experience it in the flesh
But fucking is good even with a condom on
And they caution against taking doing it raw

Monday, October 28, 2019

20191028.0430

Two brazen sentinels stand together
One half the size of the other
Waiting to sing when they are fondled and kissed
When their wood-like tips are taken into mouths and tongued
And fingers flicker over pearls
Working leather
And sliding across gaps lower down

Sunday, October 27, 2019

20191027.0430

The air does not run with the wolves here
Nor dance with them
But instead carries the calls of mountain lions
Warning others to stay away
Not to go out into the darkness
Lest they be bitten

Saturday, October 26, 2019

20191026.0430

John is still pulling away
From Marianne and Michel
While Sam struts about with his hand in his pants
And a brown bear looms larger and larger
Waiting to maul all it sees

Friday, October 25, 2019

20191025.0430

The tom has been fed the curds that were in the whey
Gobbled some greedily, scattered the rest
So that the strange stepchild that Sam indulges
Holds up to acclaim for every little thing
And every little thing is another tantrum
Can have another feather for a cap he never wears
Despite the sunburn that has to be scorching his scalp

Thursday, October 24, 2019

20191024.0430

She said
Not to infect her
With the chemotherapy that is the world
But if such a world as this
Is poison
Taken because the alternative
Is worse
What is the cancer
For which the world is a cure
That does not always work?

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

20191023.0430

There was a bit of a chill
But it is gone now
And I have to wonder how much longer
We will get to feel such things
And I have to fear
It will not be long
And I have to wonder
How much worse it will get
Before it gets better
If it gets better

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

20191022.0430

If he is quiscaline
Who sits in his dim-lit cave
And croaks loudly and harshly
And gathers a flock to him
What word is it for me
Who sit in better-lit cave
And hear the songs other birds sing
But lift no voice so loudly
Nor have so much company?

Monday, October 21, 2019

20191021.0430

What once again that avatar has wrought
That followers of Stupid God once sought,
And that to them did Stupid God allot,
And to the rest of us who otherwise would live--
Who that damned imposition may forgive
As soon as that one sails within a sieve--
Should come in this late day as no surprise
To any who have looked with any eyes
Or none. That every day is filled with lies
From those on high is long a commonplace,
But still adjusting to the ragged pace
And rapid called from th'avatar's place
Makes the legs of those running sore
And shakes those who stay seated to the core.

Sunday, October 20, 2019

20191020.0430

They struck up the bands
And some were struck down
Packed up and sent packing
While others march forward
But there will always be another performance
Another concert
Another contest
And the same is true for those that press ahead

Saturday, October 19, 2019

20191019.0430

The eternal chant of the creating syllable
Impediment to current called the end of things
Futile though it is called in a collective voice
It will still be offered
Certain as death and taxes
And as like to pull things away until an end is made

Friday, October 18, 2019

20191018.0430

Today is a day that marks at least two occasions. The happier of the two is that today makes two consecutive years of daily publication in this webspace. The sadder is that it is the thirty-first anniversary of my grandfather's death. It's something I've often heard referenced as the end of family cohesion and lamented therefore, but I do not remember it. (That's also been lamented, and more than once.)
I've not much to say today other than that. No poem will proceed hence, no essay of varying length and middling quality will follow. The marker is enough...for today. Tomorrow is a different thing altogether.

Thursday, October 17, 2019

20191017.0430

How strange it is
That a single day
Spent well
Seeing what was not seen before
Doing what was not done before
Can make such a strain
On going back to what was seen and done before

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

20191016.0430

Another suggested an idea
I thought it good
Opted in
And now it is mine to manage
And I do not know if I can
Give it what it is worth

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

20191015.0430

Emerald shifts to ruby and gold
Begins a slow rain to earth under leaden skies
And jackets emerge to wrap up arms and chests
And take hands into themselves
Thrust into soft warmth
Seeking comfort
And hoping that a past self
Left a strangely colored portrait in a longer setting
Where it can be picked up now
Too often in vain

Monday, October 14, 2019

20191014.0430

We honor those who lived before
Italian ravager came ashore
And for Spain put to wrack and gore
They who had been mighty
In this late day, we raise a glass
To those who suffered in the past
And whose descendants will outlast
The imposed society

Sunday, October 13, 2019

20191013.0430

There are always some who think
Hiding behind a shield
Allows them privilege to abuse
If
Perhaps
Only in minor ways
But when they do
They mark the emblem they bear
And so long as it remains in place
It endorses the conduct
And that does not inspire respect
Nor should it

Saturday, October 12, 2019

20191012.0430

The sprig of oak
Given as a gift for an anniversary
Suffered from being out of its native soil
Taken northward to try to grow
In red dirt
Was it the transplant that killed it
Or the wind-swept soil that yields much
But not enough
And not to the greater benefit
Or the inept hands of its gardener
For what is planted in the old accustomed soil
Seems not to grow straight

Friday, October 11, 2019

20191011.0430

The time has long since passed when I
Might the works of the past well try
For meaning that surpassed another's eye
But though it's fled and I'm behind
I am well sped and do not mind
Since I am fed and life is kind
Or so I try to tell myself

Thursday, October 10, 2019

20191010.0430

Sometimes
It is like running water
A relaxation and an open flow
Tinkling into a basin ready to receive it
Or making a mark on what is seen of a standing tree
Sometimes
It is oozing blood
The leavings of a sharp edge struck suddenly
Seeping forth for a time
And scabbing over
Sometimes
It is a strain and a start
And something plops out
Accompanied or not
But seldom quietly
And often leaving a lingering odor
Sometimes
It is emetic
The natural and appropriate result of having
Choked down something foul
At which the innards rebel
Rightly
Sometimes
It is the work of hands on a rigid cylinder
Repeatedly pulling at it
One way or another
Until something comes out
And more likely a waste than put to any good
That might pass down a generation
And though it has not been
For me
I am told that
Sometimes
It is a throbbing thing
Pulsing
Waiting for the merest touch of someone
Who knows what to do
For release

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

20191009.0430

They say
Whichever they it is
That the pendulum will swing back
But following the metaphor reminds
That each swing goes a little less far
And there is always the chance
That the chain on which the swinging weight hangs
Will break

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

20191008.0430

Ever does the work go on
Ever are days swiftly gone
Ever we seek to belong
In some place in the world
But just as work will find no end
And on days' passings we depend
We may at times find a new friend
But never everlasting

Monday, October 7, 2019

20191007.0430

There was a time
I had a goal
A cluster of letters at the end of my name
Or another one
And there was a clear course to get where
I could earn it
I followed the course
Did what I was told
Over and over again
Without fail
And with success
And the two are not the same
But who will tell me what I need to do now?

Sunday, October 6, 2019

20191006.0430

Even now
With a cushy office
And a fancy title
To go with other fancy titles
Earned in hopes of finding another
That I have abandoned
I keep abreast of postings
For positions I hope never to have to fill again
But worry that I will
And with the trouble I had with it last time
My stomach threatens turning at the thought
Of doing it again
But I cannot escape the thought

Saturday, October 5, 2019

20191005.0430

Even now
In this late year
I strive to reach out and touch someone
Many ones
And many times
Often
They respond
And gladly
Sometimes
I am told I have the
Wrong number
And I do not know
If I am suddenly named Ripley

Friday, October 4, 2019

20191004.0430

Today may seem to claim to understand
To have heard and acknowledged
Maybe to have agreed
But that claim is one forced upon it
And not by all
So does it really understand?
Does any day
Ephemeral as every day is
Passing by in succession and without let
But always happening again?

Thursday, October 3, 2019

20191003.0430

I sit in a new chair
Hunch over a new desk
Typing out strings of numbers
Short phrases
Descriptive labels
Not a narrative
Not a poem
Even if a story can be taken from them
But the chair is too big
The desk too high
And it hits me just below
Where I breathe
And I am never comfortable

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

20191002.0430

The wrinkled citrus avatar might well be pushed aside,
Its too-small hands may not suffice its ignorance to hide
And centaur-stance be broken as some clamber off the ride,
But many still will be the back end not on film espied,
And those who'd drink the orange juice squeezed from a fruit decried
By Rosetti's twisted market vendors will not be denied
Their long foul draughts, if not from hoary hairy toadstool pried,
Then maybe drawn from still red pools left by those who have died.
They listen, after all, full eager to those who have oft lied
And form a partial jury against which some have been tried
And been found guilty of such sins as sinfulness belied--
But truth matters but little with Stupid God's arms stretched wide.

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

20191001.0430

We noodle around in eighth-note rhythms
Syncopated and erratic
And think that those before played measures made of four
Or two
Or one
Or even longer
Though the mark for those is rare and strangely named
But those who played for those dances thought of themselves the same
Racing along in merriment against their elders' plodding
And looking on with some chagrin or fear
At the sixteenth-note runs their juniors play
And marveling or jealous at two-octave hops
They can scarcely hear before hearing them played
Their fingers flexing in futility
Unable to compete

Monday, September 30, 2019

20190930.0430

Seven made nine comes to an end
The equation still out of balance perhaps
But there is no more time to solve it today
And it will be a year until I can work on it again

Sunday, September 29, 2019

20190929.0430

A few letters after a name
A fancy title with
Executive or
Director or
President in it
And many find they need larger hats
I already took a bigger hat-band than most
Should I be concerned that I haven't needed to visit a haberdasher?

Saturday, September 28, 2019

20190928.0430

Hearing the songs that were sung
In what would have been the days of my older brother
If I had an older brother
And that I would likely have heard booming from his speakers
Either through the walls or out around his ears
I am almost tempted to think
I was born in the wrong time
Almost
But I would have done no better then than I do now
And I can still listen to the music as I wish
And more that the theorized he
Could never have heard

Friday, September 27, 2019

20190927.0430

Bubbling hot water
Salted already and
Churning
Pieces of meat are placed in it
Left to soak for a while
Though the chunks stay on the bone

Thursday, September 26, 2019

20190926.0430

Clear shades to brown shades to a deep garnet
I drink the jewel gladly in the afternoon
Astringent bitterness refreshment steaming hot
More inside than in the summer that yet lingers

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

20190925.0430

The light of a lamp
Fueled by gas
Is better than darkness
It lets a person see
Who can look
But that light only shines so bright
And it comes in a color that skews the view
And it must be remembered
That one stray spark
Or one leak
Can blow the whole thing to hell and back

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

20190924.0430

He tries too hard
One of the kids who
Used to be cool
Coasting on the reputation he gained then
But those who know him know
He is not the hype
With his ponytail and big bald spot
As he sits unshaven in socks and sandals
Behind a big bock of a desk--
And is no kinds than those who
Wear their anger openly

Monday, September 23, 2019

20190923.0430

Keats lays out a path that might begin again today
Two hundred years on or thereabouts
Showing plenty and labor and decline
But what he wrote is for a season in another place
And while the path may still run true there
As it did then
Amid the limestone hills that drape themselves in oak and cedar and mesquite
The summer heat lingers yet
And will for long
And as it passes there will not be multicolored revelry
Emerald and jade do not pass into garnet and topaz here
Not often and not for long
If at all
But we are compensated with sapphires in the spring
And rubies and gold for carpets instead of the ceiling

Sunday, September 22, 2019

20190922.0430

Aestas dances her last today
Shakes the golden garland and her slim hips
Hands still stroking flesh and bringing heat
Even in her last performance this year
Before she leaves for other lands
There to dance again where Polaris cannot look

Saturday, September 21, 2019

20190921.0430

The uniforms go marching by
Shining in the sunlight
Sweating beneath
And it is easy to love such things on sight
But less
Perhaps
To love the things not present in parade
Sometimes needed
Sometimes not
Unless the desires of the greedy
Whom struggle never touches
Count as need
But far from pleasant
Even when needed
Flowers grow well from shit
But what does a flower do?

Friday, September 20, 2019

20190920.0430

The boxes sit
Unopened
Or if opened
Still packed
Their contents hidden away
As they have for years now
And I have to wonder
Why I still keep them
Why I have kept them
Dragging them from place to place
And leaving them closed
With few exceptions
One or two things dragged out into the light of day
And the rest tucked away again
Such that I do not remember anymore what is in them
What a fool I am
To labor so
Working to no end

Thursday, September 19, 2019

20190919.0430

Controlled and restrained
Kept in clear confines
Surrounded by stone or steel
Regarded at remove
The fire feels good
Does work that needs doing
But left to itself
It rushes out
Eats to excess
And wastes both itself
And all it touches
It is to be feared thus
And I have always been afraid

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

20190918.0430

Life is breath
And breath is life
And that which gives life is often called a god
So what manner of maker is it
Whose hands and inblown breath
Make such discordant squawking
And what veneration is due such a deity
That does so poorly
What a god is supposed to do?

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

20190917.0430

The test seems always to come back negative
It doesn't matter what it's for
Every time
It's been clean
Or clean enough
For what was checked
And I do not know why I bother to check
Even though the test will show
Something
Sometime
I won't be able to do a damned thing about it then
I have enough useless knowledge already
Know things that do me no good
That I cannot act upon
Or dare not

Monday, September 16, 2019

20190916.0430

Behind the rolling hills
Limestone clad in oak and cedar and mesquite
I saw towering white mountains
Peaks limned in rose gold
Looking down from far away
They melt away under the skies growing blue
But I know they shall come again

Sunday, September 15, 2019

20190915.0430

The best of all bard-craft I dare not to boast;
The skills of a skald I scarcely can claim,
Yet delight in the doing of deeds of the poets
Is still mine to savor. Their songs bring me joy,
Though croaking, not crooning, crookedly flows
From ends of my fingers fast on the keys,
And worse yet wends out when I lift up voice.

Saturday, September 14, 2019

20190914.0430

What is a poem?
The question is trite
Its answer is not
Necessarily
It is an object of hatred
The recipient of the agent's action
Inculcated through bad work in the classroom
Across many years
Because if there is one student
At college
Who will ask
Will this be on the test
Or
Do I really need to know this
It will be the one who goes on to teach later
And it shows in the work
It is a gift
A package wrapped in filler
And boxes
And tape
And paper
That may or may not be pretty
For different types of pretty
And there always seems to be some other fold to open
Some other layer to be peeled back
Or something scrawled upon the wrapping
That had not been noticed before
But not all gifts are welcome
Some are given
Well intended
But ill considered
And some are the reverse
And some are last-minute purchases at a drugstore
Recalling that a gift is owed
If a gift can be owed
But not recalling why in time to make it a good one
So it is a token payment
Though what is purchased thereby is not certain
It is a screaming into the void
An assertion against the world that
I
Am
Here
And a confession that
I
Do
Not
Know
And an assertion that
Neither
Do
You
And an avenue through which we can both figure it out
If we try
But not so many want to make the attempt
As should
It is other things too
And in so being
Frustrates
Many
Who seek to have one answer to one question
Always and every time
Even though there is more often
More than one answer
Than one
And the answers change with passing years
What is a poem, then?
It will depend on who asks
And who answers
And where
And when
And that is as it ought to be

Friday, September 13, 2019

20190913.0430

The heavens align
With the artificial construction of our time
Because the slowly dying orbits of
Selene trying to reach Gaea
And Gaea striving for Helios
And Helios slowly bloating as he
Seeks a deep dark hole to plunge into
Care not for a Friday or viernes or Freitag
Or whatever we might care to call it
And they reck not the number of the day
Know it not
Or mock us for our little knowing if they indeed know
Máni may show his pock-marked face
Pitted and stained from abuse in ages long gone
But if people act differently for seeing it
The fault is not his
But perhaps their recognition that
They are wrong
To abuse others in the ways that they do
That all of us do
And need to amend

Thursday, September 12, 2019

20190912.0430

Lacking the stamina I remember having
I appreciate a slow day
Now and again
But when there are many such
All in a row
I have to wonder what is coming
I have to fear it

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

20190911.0430

Eighteen years on
And we're still in the middle of it
Even more so now than then
Perhaps
Since those afflicting us
Are us
Or are close enough to us that
No security theater will stop them
Nor will a regular theater
Or a schoolhouse door
Or a church door
Even if they should be glad to die there
If they really believe what they purport to believe
Or they are the actors in that play
Making themselves worse than Miles Gloriosus
Because they can back their boasts
And walk away
When black men and children cannot
And brown men, women, and children can walk no further
We have lost the "war" we thought to fight
Becoming too much like that we thought to fight
And sliding closer to it every day
As a canceled dinner plan suggests

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

20190910.0430

I evidently have a mark on my forehead
Despite sacrificing no sheep
And my brother yet living
But it might be worth noting
That another who is said to have had such a mark
Wandered
And did not return home

Monday, September 9, 2019

20190909.0430

I carry a torch
As I think most do
But that lover has spurned me
Long since
Having a light of her own
A dim and flickering flame from an oil lamp
Once brightly polished but tarnished now
And I wonder what it obscures
When it used to be my bad vision
That kept things about her hidden

Sunday, September 8, 2019

20190908.0430

It is not a great weight I carry
Not against the weights others bear
But I still do not know if I am strong enough to carry it
And I do not know how I can become stronger
If I can do so

Saturday, September 7, 2019

20190907.0430

It is a strange thing
Having worked the work
To no longer do so
But to watch as others do it
It is a stranger thing
That sitting and watching
Becomes so easy
So quickly

Friday, September 6, 2019

20190906.0430

The cry is often raised
We have rights!
Respect our rights!
We can bear arms!
The Constitution says so!
But
That right matters little
Against a thin blue line that hides behind
A golden shield
And claims to serve and protect
But whose interests are never stated
And the youth fall dead because of it

Thursday, September 5, 2019

20190905.0430

Even in West Texas
A place renowned in story and song
For frontier spirit and self-reliance
For fast draws and sharp shots
Rough and ready riders with pistols at hand
The good guys with guns were not good enough
And vengeance is cold comfort to those left behind

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

20190904.0430

Time and again
They surround me and celebrate
But even when the celebration is of me
For me
About me
I find it hard to smile

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

20190903.0430

Swollen throat and running nose
Are signs expected, I suppose,
Of cold from summer's final throes
Flung messily upon me
I neither cough nor sneeze as yet
Though I would not against it bet
That of cough and sneeze I have a set
To be soon discharged by me

Monday, September 2, 2019

20190902.0430

On this day that labor won
It might be thought the fight is done
Since the work week is set by law--
But such thought is beset by flaw
For no law in itself is good
And often evil in law's stood
And that a thing has a marked day
Means not that its foe's gone away
Indeed, more often past its end
Does observance a thing defend
Despite what others may pretend
And what labor unions may oppose
Still fights on, no in death throes
But once again does dire threat pose

Sunday, September 1, 2019

20190901.0430

With the new month just now begun
Might be thought comes new chance for fun
But far more likely sorrow comes
As each new indignity numbs
And constant onslaught batters down
The brave, and jumps up a preening clown
Who struts and frets upon the stage
And in clowning ends an age
By laying bare all of its sins--
But no new era thus begins

Saturday, August 31, 2019

20190831.0430

If it is the case that I might be well served by being further out of the classroom than I have been these past years, it is not the case that I should stop doing the kind of researched writing that I have enjoyed doing for quite some time. For if it is the case that there is joy in piecing things together and figuring out new things from doing so, it is also the case that doing the work of compiling such writing as I flatter myself I've done focuses my attentions in that regard. And it is a joy that harms none in itself, so it is a pleasure that may be indulged more than most others that could be named.
I continue to have ideas for things to treat, ideas for papers to write and either to post to one of the several webspaces I maintain or to present in an upper Midwestern springtime or some such thing. One proceeds from yesterday's discussion; I saw a connection between a couple of things that I might explicate and bring out for others to see, as well. Others come from emails I get--not the proverbial list of writing prompts (though there are such things, as I am well aware), but instead from ideas sparked by reading one newsletter or another I receive at odd intervals. Still others emerge from sources less clear to me as I move ahead with addressing them. Sometimes they work well. Sometimes they do not. But even in finding that they don't, there's something of value, to be sure, and I am glad to have it.
Maybe that is part of why I continue to write in my journal and in this webspace, as well as in the others I maintain. In the others, I present more or less developed ideas. In this and in the journal, I make no such pretense; here and there, I play with ideas, writing to generate them in the model I was taught in graduate school and which I was obliged to teach then (and which I have not done terribly well in doing, I remain convinced). I am not certain that it is enough reason to maintain the separate media, not sure it justifies my continued efforts in the different areas. For now, though, I will keep doing as I have been doing, and I'll be moving into something else here beginning tomorrow--it will be a new month, after all, and I tend to move around from month to month in this webspace, as I have shown.
What I will take up tomorrow, I am not certain. I think I probably need to return to some of the older things I've done, use them to gather myself as I move ahead into a new line of work and all. There are some things I'd like to try, too, and it will be good to have the opportunity to address myself to them, if only for a time.

Friday, August 30, 2019

20190830.0430

As I round out the last day of one job and take up the mantle of another--my promotion takes effect at the end of the business day today--I note that many of the people who remain in the profession I sought to enter have met with their new students for the first time this week. It will be a while before I have another set of them of my own--I would seem to be coming upon an off session for the teaching I still do--and I still remember fondly some sets of students I have had, who early distinguished themselves as engaged in learning and whose conduct through sessions and semesters bore that out. I miss it (though not nearly enough to leave off the work I am doing now in favor of returning to teaching as my primary job).
Seeing the comments friends and acquaintances of mine are making about their students and the shared enthusiasm, I am reminded of the flatly intoxicating experience of learning going well. Gaining new knowledge, fitting it into what I have already known, and figuring more things out as a result of that joining--there is pleasure in such things, deep and abiding pleasure that is not done in a moment and leaves no sticky mess behind it, carries no threat of disease or illness in the mornings to come. And there's no small joy to be found in guiding others to such pleasures and seeing them revel therein.
Seeing such comments, too, I am reminded of how seldom I have had such moments with my classes. Perhaps it has been what I have tended to teach--classes required but that are perceived (incorrectly) as having no bearing on what the students seek to do--or perhaps it is because the students who have complained about my (lack of) teaching skills have been correct, but I have not often found myself in the position of turning students on to the kinds of things we are doing, not often found myself leading them to enjoy the work I am obliged by institutions to have them do. Or maybe it is the fact of obligation, itself, that hinders it--but I think it is in me, as others who are similarly obliged and constrained seem somehow to do better about it.
Perhaps, then, it is a good thing that I do no more teaching than I do anymore. Perhaps, with the new job, I should look to draw myself further out of that line of work, be in the classroom less and in other places more, and let others who are excluded even from part-time contingent academic work by my presence in it and who might be of better service to students have the space. Certainly, I do not have the poor ratings in my current position that I have in the one I sought to hold before; I'd not be about to advance to head my organization did I. And maybe I ought to be more content with it, focus on it more fully, and not seek to be what I should long have recognized being told I would not be able to be.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

20190829.0430

I've noted a propensity towards being long-winded, towards waxing verbose about things that most would regard as being simple. It's something I've seen attributed to those who work in the humanities and those who dabble in them despite repeated failed attempts to enter one of the few lines of work that make a living (increasingly poorly and tenuously) at doing so, and it's not incorrect or inaccurate to make such an attribution. It is, however, incorrect and inaccurate to assign the attribution solely or primarily to such people; it is something of which most folks are guilty, and with things as seemingly "trivial" as the work of the humanities.
It's a thing I've often encountered with students as I've taught writing across many years, now, that they claim they want only to say what needs saying and move on. (That so many of them as do pad out their prose with trite and cliché phrasing, while not offering details that would be helpful or explaining the details, suggests that the claim is not sincere.) Yet I note that they do not scruple to go on at length, mouth to ear, about any number of things that may or may not be of more importance in the wider world than what I urge them to treat in their writing. (I do push them to do more than jump through the hoops of the assignments, though most, given where I teach and what their goals are for their curricula, only seek to jump through the hoops--not always successfully.) And they do so with fellow students who may not have been interested in the subject matter previously, who would have had little reason to be expected to be interested in it.
Clearly, then, being long-winded is not a bad thing in itself. Yet it seems to be condemned in people like me as we talk about the things we tend to discuss. And it is not restricted to the teacher-student relationship, which is often figured as antagonistic and, as a relationship of uneven power dynamic, can be understood to provoke some resistance in itself. On those rare occasions when I am out among other adults who aren't relatives, in some situation that's not work, I find myself going on over-much about my interests and work, while trivia receive rapt attention despite being bruited about for longer and with fewer gaps.
I should not be surprised at it; I should not ever be surprised at it. I know that I am strange for the things I like and enjoy, stranger still for making a study of them, and even stranger for having made an attempt to make it my professional life. And I have long known it, sometimes in bruises on my body. Those have faded, and they have not been renewed for the most part, but I still find myself tender to certain touches that I ought perhaps to have hardened myself against long since.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

20190828.0430

As should be clear, I am not leaving off my efforts in this webspace quite yet. There will be an end to them in time, of course, as comes to all things; whether the blog ends because I end or because I do consolidate my writings into a single webspace, as I have said I might do, or because the infrastructures that support blogging, generally, come to their own conclusions (though I am like to end, myself, in such a circumstance), it will end. But that end is not now, or the now in which I write this--which will be a different now from when it is read, and by that now, things might have ended which have not yet while I write.
Such constructions of time are strange things, things the English I know is not well suited to treating. Whether a two-tense, three-tense, six-tense, ten-tense, or twelve-tense understanding applies, moving through time presents problems for discussion. There's a reason verb confusion is a staple joke in time-travel narratives, after all. Humor relies on commonalities of understanding, and confusion about how to describe motion in time relative to the time of utterance and performance is a commonplace, even among the audiences that tend to go in for time-travel narratives--who generally consider themselves more intelligent than the mean. (Whether they are correct, in the aggregate or individually, is another question, entirely.)
The time-travel available to me, and I presume to others (because I think things would be different were other options available to people), does not oblige people to think about strange permutations of verb tenses often. Time sweeps us along, not as boats borne ceaselessly back into the past, but rushing before its driving currents and often trying to anchor ourselves in some fixed point that we thought we saw but probably only glimpsed fleetingly and that offers no secure tying-off point. What is and what is hoped and what is thought once was are generally enough. Maybe there is a reference to another point within those. But the motion seems to go in one direction, though if as a river or as a flow within a broader ocean, the shores of which are seen only barely if at all, is no more clear than such seeing.
It is all a long-winded way of saying that I'm not quitting yet. Such long-windedness might be expected from someone who has several degrees in English language and literature; I have to have some way to justify to myself spending as long doing what I did as I did, some pretense that I know something or have something to say because I spent years in studying what many of the people where I live and have lived do as a matter of course, finding issues in that doing that I and a vanishingly few others might care about--but that does not help us to address our greater needs or others'.

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

20190827.0430

If it is the case that I question why I continue to keep a journal, it should also be the case that I question why I continue to write in this webspace. Others I maintain, namely Elliott RWI and the Tales after Tolkien Society blog, serve clear functions for people other than me. The former serves as advertising for my freelance work and a repository for the students I still teach. The latter is a mouthpiece for a scholarly society I have the privilege of leading, one that offers publication venues for scholars who may not be the most traditional and presentation venues in at least one place. But this webspace serves as a place of random rumination and odd bits of verse. It lives up to the ravings in its name, though I am not sure the lucid prose in the same place appears as often as it perhaps should.
There is a certain amount of vanity that informs any public performance--and publishing writing, even so informally as in a blog like this, is a public performance. Doing so demands that the one doing it have some belief that he or she has something to contribute, something others need or want to see, and that necessarily has a certain amount of arrogance about it. Who am I, after all, to decide that you need to read a thing, or that you want to do so? Yet I make that decision with each keystroke, each letter put into pixels and pushed out into the world where, presumably, somebody reads it--few as such people are, from the reports of readership available to me.
Yet vanity is a bad thing, or it is often called so. In any other situation, I would not do well to indulge the presumption that I do in writing and posting. I would be rightly rebuked for telling another person, mouth to ear, that he or she wants something or needs it in most cases--Ms. 8, as she is now, offers most of the exceptions. Why it should be different for writing is not entirely clear; there is the fact that readers seek to read, admittedly, that they are generally not forced to click the link or turn the page, but choose to do so. But that is not the sum of it, I am certain, though I am not certain what the remainder is.
Even more than most of the writing I do, this blog is a vanity project. It does not bring in money; it does not advertise my efforts except insofar as it links to them; it does not allow others to promote their own work. And while I will treat many topics in it that might be called objectionable, there are decided limits as to what I post here, even more than to what I log into the pages of my personal journal. It is not an open and authentic representation of who and what I am, not really. So its continued justification for existence is uncertain.
I have considered setting this aside before. I am not going to leave it off quite yet. But I do not know how much longer I will keep it going. Then again, that is always true...

Monday, August 26, 2019

20190826.0430

I have not made a secret that I have been trying to keep a journal--a pen-and-paper one--for some time now, having started when I was an undergraduate and moving into more formal and "fancier" volumes since near the end of my baccalaureate. I've not been as good about doing so as I would like to be; there are often gaps of more than a few days between entries, with some spanning months. I am not proud of my lack of performance, as might be imagined.
I have for some time questioned why I maintain the pretense of maintaining the practice. The very word "journal" implies that it ought to be the kind of daily thing it never has been for me, as does the other common word for it: "diary." I might claim to use my journal to work on my pen-hand, but that remains much as it ever has been, attracting censure from those who have occasion to look upon it for long. I might also claim that I use it to work out ideas where I can look at them, the specific physicality of pen on paper helping me do so, but that I write in it as irregularly as I do suggests that I have few ideas--which is not good cause to keep doing it. I might also claim that I do so in the hope that Ms. 8 or another might take interest in who I am more privately than in such webspaces as this.
I remark "more privately" because I know there is always a performative, constructed aspect of how any of us appear to others as soon as we gain any conscious ability to regulate ourselves. More attention accrues to social media sites and blogs like this, to professional personæ than to such venues as putatively private written journals, and there is a prevailing perspective that such journals are somehow "more real" than more ephemeral media. The object has more presumed permanence, certainly. But even in handwritten journals, even in documents that might be thought to be sharply restricted in their circulation and readership, I and others fashion ourselves. How many narrate their lives to center themselves in events, to make themselves the protagonists even when they have been nothing but antagonistic?
I expect a fairly limited readership here, and I expect an even more restricted one for my handwritten journals. The issues of limited number of copies--there is only the one, unless something has happened of which I am unaware--and the poor quality of my pen-hand (though I still cannot seem to get a straight answer about what makes it bad) would keep many from reading it even were there a clamor to look at what I have written. I do not expect that I will have to hide much from such readers as would stumble upon and pore over my pen-scrawled pages or that I will be in position to conceal from them--save through what I do not put into those pages. Given what I do put in them--I am freer there than here, and I comment on a great many things here that some might argue I ought not--it might be thought that I would not elide any topics in my journal. But while it is the case that I address uncomfortable or impolitic issues in the journal, there are a few things I flatly will not put to paper. They are not mine to share, or not mine alone.
Some such secrets may do well to be brought to light, I admit. Others need to stay hidden, and I could wish to forget them as I have forgotten other things it were better I could still recall. There are times the burden of remembering as I do vexes me greatly. I do not know what it is that lets me forget things, that seals away sensory impressions I know I have had--the touch of a hand, the sound of a laughing voice--yet leaves others ever-present just behind my eyes, others that seek to entice me down a spiral path to dark places I already visit far more often than is good for anyone.
I will not rehearse those memories here. I will not put them where they may be found. But I have to acknowledge that having them and withholding them, here or in the personal journals from which they are also absent, marks me as presenting a selective, partial, constructed version of myself in each writing situation, and it would do so even were I not so open about doing so. That I do not comment on a thing does not mean I do not acknowledge its reality. And if I will circumscribe myself even in a venue that presumes openness, then I must wonder why I pretend to it. I could practice my pen-hand otherwise, and I could shift my log of events to this webspace or to another, entirely.

Sunday, August 25, 2019

20190825.0430

I've had occasion recently to consider--yet again, or still, since I'm not certain it's been far from the front of my mind at any point--my further removal from academe. An online conversation not too long ago put it back into the front of my mind; in essence, the question about what to do with graduate students in the humanities who do not or cannot secure tenure-track employment (which is most of us, really) came up again, with a professor looking for answers to be able to pass on to students (also at the undergraduate level), and I answered from my own experience stumbling into the job I currently have after being spurned for the last time by the tenured world.
I am aware that my experience is not typical. I don't imagine that all of us who enter graduate school thinking we will become professors, only to be disappointed and frustrated at the unwillingness of the academic world to increase again its ranks of full-time mind-workers, will be able to do as I was lucky enough to do and find a job that makes some use of our skills and does not take a look at the post-nominal cluster of letters that bespeak the years in class and working to push back the boundaries of human ignorance and push us away. I don't imagine many will find a place whose leadership is looking to retire and seeks a successor, either. So there's a limit to how applicable my experience will be for others.
My testimony seems to have been appreciated, though. There is some validation in having those among whose company I aspired to be looking with favor on what I write and say, some whiff of "I didn't fail to get a tenure-line job because I'm not smart enough, not good enough." (That I am as happy about it as I am probably says something unpleasant about me. I do not think I want to explore it much further than that.) And I can hope that the comments, being where they are and having attracted the attention that they have, will attract more attention to me, both for the sake of my vanity and for the sake of my freelance work (which I still do and can stand to have more to do). So there is that much to consider.
In the meantime, I am glad to have the job I have and be poised to take the one I am about to take. I am doing better now than when I was "following the dream" and seeking to find a tenure-line position to fill. And I think I am doing better work in the world; I still work against the boundaries of human ignorance (doing more now than I did while amid the search, as it happens), and I am in a place where I do not have to worry every few months about whether or not I will have a job next week. It's a nice thing, and I can hope that more people get to have it.

Saturday, August 24, 2019

20190824.0430

This month has been a struggle for me in terms of getting writing done. I have been much distracted, less able than usual to sit and put words to pages physical and otherwise, and so I have not been able to build up the buffers I usually enjoy, in this webspace and in others. The distractions have not been unwelcome--really, I ought not to call them that. They are the bits of day-to-day living that make a life, and the writing I do is a distraction from them. It is only because I have learned many bad habits across many years that I make such a comment, that I would view what I do on a screen or with a pen as somehow more important than being with and around those for whom I purport to do any of the work I do.
I suppose it speaks to the various kinds of privilege I have enjoyed in my life. I have often been able to be selfish, to be indulged by attending to my own desires and devices instead of aiding others with their concerns. I have been amply supported as I have sought to do so, even without providing any real return on that support, any justification beyond the love my supporters have for me (of which I am entirely undeserving). And so I have taken on the idea that my desires are more important, and that those which entertain me are the desires to be pursued.
The idea is utterly wrong, of course, and I know it. I know that I am of worth only insofar as I am of aid to others, only insofar as I make things better for others. I know that indulging myself does not make things better. But there are different kinds of knowing, and some of them stand in the way of others. I work to overcome them, but I have not won the battle. I am not sure I ever actually will, even though I will keep fighting.

Friday, August 23, 2019

20190823.0430

The Prince of Fantasists writes into Bilbo's mouth that the hobbit feels "like butter scraped over too much bread." It's a lovely simile, one fit for the food-loving perian and broadly accessible to readers, most of whom will have at least passing familiarity with the noted substances. Like most comparisons, however, the simile has more to unpack in it than comes across on a first reading, owing chiefly to its vehicle of butter.
For if it is the case that Bilbo is like butter--and it might be argued that he is in ways--then it must be wondered what cow yielded the milk from which he was churned and who did the churning. Easy answers within the milieu include Manwë and Ilúvatar, and Gandalf might well be thought to have had a hand in the cultivation, as well. Others include Bilbo's parents, and it may well be noted that the cow grazed upon the grass of the Great Smials, the quality of which comes out in the product of its milk. (The obvious out-of-milieu answer is, of course, Tolkien himself, or Tolkien's narrative persona, at least.)
As to the spreading, there is ultimately one answer: Sauron. It is the Ring that extends Bilbo's life, that lets him endure as long as he has by the time he makes the comment in the quote, and the Ring is an extension of Sauron, per the text. The argument could be made that the action of the simile--spreading too little over too much--is miserliness and parsimony, both of which are generally considered negative, therefore appropriate to attribute to the Dark Lord. So, too, does the image that arises of a knife pushing the butter along the bread; it portends violence, knives being knives, but it also foreshadows the ultimate defeat of Sauron, as the knives used to spread butter are generally dull, rounded, suitable for cutting only the softest of things. They are not of much use as weapons; their proposed violence is muted at best, apt for an evil destined to be beaten.
The simile both reveals some of the character of its speaker and offers a bit of subtle foreshadowing (though not a bit that comes as a surprise, given the expectations of genre in place at the time). Further interrogation might reveal yet more, of course, speaking perhaps to Tolkien's own ideologies or to some other commentary on the greater world. But even a brief look at the phrasing reveals that there is work to be done, reminding readers who are interested in taking that look that there is much to unpack in the simplest of notes and showing that entry into criticism is not so hard a thing as might be imagined.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

20190822.0430

Ruminations on my office situation are not new for me, as I've shown in a few places (here, here, and here, among others). Given events, I am likely to draft another one soon; I have noted, I believe, my impending shift in job, and the shift comes with a new office I've not moved into yet. After I do, though, it will be time to sit down and write more about my office spaces; I welcome the task, not least because I like having other things to put into the webspace where I make such comments. But I am not in that office yet, and I am in something of a liminal position for another week or so, until the current occupant moves out and I move in. The situation is a strange one I've not really been in before.
To be sure, I've lost office spaces. I've explicitly spoken to such losses, in fact, such that I do not need to rehearse my feelings about when it's happened before. The current situation, though, has me still in occupation of my current office space, but sharing it with another who is training to take it over as I move into the office my new position will afford me. I drift between the two, going from my desk in front to the office desk in the adjoining room. And I feel the drift; I feel myself unanchored, though it is less a feeling of being underway than it perhaps should be (and if I may, landsman that I am, use such metaphors as that).
I am aware that I am not cast out, as I have been more than once. I know that I still have a place and that I will continue to have a place. But I think it is the case that my earlier experiences being moved from office to office and being forced out of office after office have left me anxious about things this time around. I learned later than I ought to have that I should not be secure in my academic positions, and now that I am in a position that is more stable than those (because things could still happen that I would prefer not to have happen), I cannot escape it; I cannot unlearn what I have learned, or I have not yet done so, and it leaves me feeling...strange, and not in a way I enjoy. (I admit to a certain amount of strangeness and to enjoying the same, but not all strangeness is the same.)
I will persist, of course; it is only for a bit more than a week, now, and I can deal with that. It is simply a strange thing for me, and I thought I might remark upon it a bit.